Hall of Fame sportswriter Bill Conlin has retired from his position with the Philadelphia Daily News following allegations of child molestation, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

An investigative story detailing the allegations against Conlin was published Tuesday afternoon by The Inquirer. In it, three women and a man say Conlin molested them when they were children.

Conlin has hired attorney George Bochetto to defend him against the allegations.

“Mr. Conlin is obviously floored by these accusations, which supposedly happened 40 years ago. He has engaged me to do everything possible to bring the true facts forward and to vindicate his name,” Bochetto said in a statement.

A spokeswoman from the Philadelphia Daily News told NBC10 that Colin retired and did not resign.

The Inquirer story includes allegations from four adults who say Conlin fondled them and touched their genitals in a series of incidents in the 1970s. The four ranged in age from 7 to 12 at the time of the alleged assaults.

Kelley Blanchet, Conlin's niece, told the newspaper Conlin put his hand between her legs and touched her genitals, and penetrated her with his fingers when she was about 7.

"This is a tragedy," said Blanchet, who is now a prosecutor in Atlantic City, N.J. "People have kept his secret. It's not just the victims, it's the victims' families. There were so many people who knew about this and did nothing."

The others alleging they were abused are Kevin Healey, now 48, who was a close friend of Conlin's son Billy; Healey's sister Karen Healey, now 44; and a friend of Karen Healey's, also 44, who asked the newspaper not to publish her name.

Gloucester County, N.J., prosecutors took videotaped statements from the four last year, the Inquirer says. But no charges can be filed because the statute of limitations has passed on all the alleged incidents.

"We would love to see justice in this case," Detective Stacie Lick of the Prosecutor's Office wrote in an e-mail to one of the women last month. "So many people have been victimized by this man, but our hands are tied by the law, which does not let us prosecute."

Conlin, 77, won the J.G. Taylor Spink Award last May and was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in July.

Jack O'Connell, secretary/treasurer of the Baseball Writers' Association of America, said in a statement Tuesday that the claims against Conlin won't affect his award.

“Bill Conlin has been a member in good standing of the BBWAA since 1966. The allegations have no bearing on his winning the 2011 J.G. Taylor Spink Award, which was in recognition of his notable career as a baseball writer,” O'Connell said.

BBWAA president Bill Shaikin released a follow-up statement Wednesday that read: "We were shocked and saddened to learn of the allegations involving Bill Conlin and we extend our sympathies to everyone involved. This is a matter far more serious than baseball and, at this point, a matter best left to the proper authorities."

According to his biography on the Philadelphia Daily News website, Conlin joined the publication in 1965 and took over as the Philadelphia Phillies’ beat writer in 1966. In 1987, he became a columnist—a position he held until his retirement. He was inducted into the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame in 2009.

Daily News editor Larry Platt, speaking at a news conference, said he accepted Conlin's offer to retire by phone on Tuesday afternoon. Platt would only characterize the conversation as "painful."

Platt said he didn't know about the allegations until Tuesday. He described the emotions in the newsroom as "overwhelmingly a sense of shock, a sense of outrage, a sense of sadness."

The Daily News and Inquirer are owned by the same company, Philadelphia Media Network, and operate out of the same building downtown but compete on stories. Inquirer editor Stan Wischnowski said at the news conference the story had been in the works for about a month.

In one recent column titled "Tough Guys Are Talking About Sandusky," Conlin questioned people who say they would have intervened had they witnessed child sex abuse.

"Everybody says he will do the right thing, get involved, put his own ass on the line before or after the fact. But the moment itself has a cruel way of suspending our fearless intentions," he wrote.